← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Trump says 65% of Americans are ‘FOOLS!’
00:41:02
Tonight on The Last Word: The House vote on the Senate’s funding bill is expected on Wednesday. Also, NBC News reports Ghislaine Maxwell’s emails say she is “happier” in minimum security prison. Plus, Trump floats the idea of $2,000 tariff rebate checks. And Trump could be forced to refund his tariffs. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Jason Furman, and Lori Mullins join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
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- [00:20]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
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- [00:24]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We've generated over 100,000 leads which has converted into over 40,000 sales for our pet insurance policies. My name is Trey Farrow. I am the CEO of Spot Pet Insurance. TikTok Smart Plus AI powered automation takes the guesswork out of targeting, bidding and optimizing creative. If I can advertise on TikTok, you can to drive more leads and scale your business.
- [00:45]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
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- [00:50]
Laurie Mullins
The Last Word with Lawrence O' Donnell starts right now. Hey, Lawrence.
- [00:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Hey, John. In your earlier segment tonight, you talked about how it's going on the redistricting plans around the country. This was started by Republicans, started by Donald Trump to try to pick up more House seats in Texas. And it really looks tonight with the news from Utah and elsewhere that it may end up being thanks to Gavin Newsom in California and other moves that the Democrats end up picking up more seats through redistricting than the Republicans. And the Democrats didn't start this. They weren't gonna do any of this until Donald Trump got it started.
- [01:33]
Laurie Mullins
It's really unbelievable.
- [01:35]
Commercial Announcer
And a big part of it, Lawrence.
- [01:37]
Laurie Mullins
Is people are fighting back. I mean, Missouri, they've had a kind of a grassroots movement fighting back.
- [01:43]
Commercial Announcer
In Virginia, they have their own movement there.
- [01:47]
Laurie Mullins
And Utah, of course, I mean, big red Utah. It's really unbelievable. They may live to regret it. We'll see. But it's a really interesting turn in the story.
- [01:57]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah, we're going to keep following that one. It's really and Gavin Newsom really has emerged as the leader on this in a very powerful way.
- [02:05]
Laurie Mullins
No question about it. I think it put a lot of pressure on other governors of blue states to take action if they, if they can. And we've seen that over the last week.
- [02:14]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We'll be following it. Thanks, Jen.
- [02:16]
Laurie Mullins
Thanks, Lawrence.
- [02:16]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you.
- [02:18]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, Donald Trump, who is facing the disapproval of 54% of Americans, continues his politically losing ways by saying something that could get that disapproval number up, something that no president in history has ever said 2/3 of Americans are fools. Donald Trump put that in writing. Donald Trump said in writing, people that are against tariffs are fools. 65% of Americans are fools. According to Donald Trump, 65%. 65% of Americans oppose the Trump tariffs. And Donald Trump's response to that is to call them fools with an exclamation point. 65% of the country knows that Donald Trump's tariffs are causing inflation, causing them higher costs that they're facing. 65% know that the Trump tariffs are economically hurting them. And Donald Trump calls them fools and then says he wants to send them all a check for $2,000 to compensate for the economic harm that his tariffs have caused those people. The Wall Street Journal editorial board responded to that idea, saying, quote, if tariffs are a free economic launch and their benefits abound, why offer a rebate? Donald Trump is the most inconsistent, incoherent, ignorant federal elected official in history on the subject of tariffs. And because he spreads so much madness and chaos every day, the Washington news media is incapable of what would be their standard reaction to a politician saying that 65% of Americans are fools. There would be outrage. Imagine once again if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had ever said 65% of Americans are fools. Imagine the number of articles that would pour forth out of the Washington news media about how elitist and out of touch that Democrat is for saying 65% of the American people are fools. Donald Trump can say it, and the Washington news media doesn't even notice it because his madness has understandably worn them down. They have lowered their standards for Donald Trump. Later in this hour, we will hear from President Obama's Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Jason Furman, on Donald Trump's idea about paying $2,000 to 225 million people he calls fools. Also later in the hour, we'll hear from an expert on how to refund tariffs. If the Supreme Court properly rules that Donald Trump's tariffs are illegal and unconstitutional, then those illegally collected tariffs will have to be refunded. And Donald Trump is lying about such a refund now, claiming that it would involve trillions of dollars being refunded from the Treasury. That is a complete lie. Only $195 billion has been collected in Trump tariffs. And all of that could easily be ref refunds that much every year and overpaid income taxes. Our guest joining us later in the hour will show you exactly how tariffs are paid and exactly how they can be refunded. And it's just as easy as the refund that the treasury sends to millions and millions of income taxpayers every year. That expert will show you an actual receipt for tariffs paid. $98,000 in tariffs paid, which includes all the information that the treasury needs to refund that tariff money to the American payer of the Trump tariff. But we begin tonight with your feelings. There was much disappointment about the way the end of the shutdown was brokered in the United States Senate by five Democratic Senators who appeared to change their position at the end of seven weeks of shutdown. By the time I presented that news last night, there had been an outpouring of outrage on social media all day about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer failing to control every Democratic vote in the Senate, something no Democratic leader of the Senate has ever been able to consistently do. The late night comedians had their usual fun at Chuck Schumer's expense. Some of them clearly think that they would be better at the job of Democratic leader of the United States Senate because obviously it's easy in their view. When I explained what I think is the reality of Senate leadership here last night, based on my experience working in the Senate, I wasn't so much concerned with the feelings of the disappointed than I was with the reality of the situation and getting that reality as clear as possible here. But our first guest tonight is much better at addressing feelings than I am, as he showed in this video posted yesterday.
- [07:33]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
I know that a lot of people are feeling some pretty strong feelings today, feelings of frustration, even betrayal. I have somewhat the advantage of from being in the Senate, being a couple of days ahead of everybody seeing that this was going to happen. So I've had a bit more time to process it than people who discovered it yesterday. And while I think everybody is entitled to their feelings on this, and I don't want to derogate those in any way. We need to remember the battle that we're in and every ounce of energy that we put into fighting with each other, fighting with other Democrats is energy that is lost to the fight to defend our country from Trump and maga. Whatever your feelings are, I validate them. Great. Feel that way. But we've got a battle on our hands and it's a battle whose real game day is November a year from now when we have the chance to throw Speaker Johnson out of the Speaker's office and put the Senate under Democratic control and put real obstacles in the way of Trump's corruption and misconduct.
- [08:58]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is one of the people who One of our faithful viewers suggested on Twitter last night should be the new Senate Democratic leader. I'll ask Senator Whitehouse if he thinks Chuck Schumer should be replaced as leader and if he wants that job. It's worth noting that no Democratic member of the Senate has said their leader should be replaced. And we now have reporting indicating that the small group of Democratic senators who reached a compromise with Republicans started working on that compromise on the first night of the government shutdown seven weeks ago. Politico reports Senators Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Angus King of Maine began talking with Republicans the first night of the shutdown, by Shaheen's account. So with a small group of Democrats working with Republicans from the first night of the shutdown, Chuck Schumer was able to convince those Democrats not to make a deal until after last week's election. Donald Trump himself blamed the shutdown for the Republicans wipeout in last week's election. And if that's true, does Chuck Schumer deserve some credit for pushing the shutdown through last week's election so it could have that impact on the election? The final Democratic vote that sealed the deal came from Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was Hillary Clinton's vice presidential running mate. There appears to be a belief out there that the minority leader of the Senate can simply tell Tim Kaine what to do. Tim Kaine said that his number one issue in the shutdown was always protecting federal government workers. And he achieved some protection for government workers, many of whom live in his state of Virginia. In his negotiations with Republicans, Politico reports Tim Kaine privately laid out weeks ago what he needed in return for his vote to end the government shutdown. A moratorium on mischief. He meant no more firing of federal workers. So there's the final vote that sealed the deal that got them to 60. The final vote sealed the deal. Negotiating with Republicans for weeks Negotiating with Republicans weeks before last week's election. And through it all, Chuck Schumer tried to hold on to those Democrats. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told members involved in the talks about two weeks ago he could not support the deal they were sketching out, continued privately urging them to hold out even as they moved to concede. This week, every Democratic senator had exactly the same chance to talk Tim Kaine out of it. Every single one of them. Every Democratic senator had a chance to try to change John Fetterman's mind. But John Fetterman and two other Democrats voted with the Republicans even before any compromise was struck. There were three Democrats siding with The Republicans, basically from the start on this shutdown. And so the shift to a compromise was done by only five Democrats. And that then added up to a total of eight Democrats who were willing to vote for the compromise that brought that total to the necessary 60 votes. The minority party has never won a major concession in a government shutdown. It's never happened. That's one of the facts that moved those five senators toward compromise. Most of the people with the most hurt feelings about this seem to believe that they know for a fact what was going to happen next in the government shutdown. They have mistaken their guesses for facts. There are never answers for what happens next in a government shutdown, only guesses. And in the past, the reason shutdowns ended is that both sides were rational. Donald Trump is not rational. Donald Trump is not running for reelection. Donald Trump doesn't care about anything. Donald Trump doesn't care about starving people. Donald Trump doesn't care about health insurance premiums. Donald Trump doesn't care about government itself. That makes him a unique negotiating partner in American political history. He has no political future to care about, and he doesn't care about the future of his political party. The five Democrats who made the compromise made the guess that they were never going to get the big thing they were asking for. So they asked for and got something smaller. Only in the age of Trump, with a news media that lost perspective a long time ago, could this outcome be reported as a loss for the Democrats, meaning all Democrats, instead of a strategic choice by five Democrats who changed their position in exchange for 271 Republicans, including the president, changing their positions and agreeing to increased funding for supplemental nutrition assistance, for agreeing to protect government workers, to not allow Donald Trump to fire them, not allow any of the layoffs that Donald Trump has executed during the shutdown to hold. All of those people will be rehired because of what Tim Kaine negotiated. They will all get back pay. There was nothing unusual in what those five Democrats did. There is no reason to presume that they were trying to sabotage anyone. Everything that they've publicly said about it indicates that those five Democrats were trying to do the right thing in an unprecedented situation, a situation that no one in the Senate has ever faced before. And the choice that they made was a guess. Just like the rest of the Democrats who guessed that the best thing was to keep the shutdown going, to try for the first time in history, to legislate from the minority in a shutdown. A small minority of Americans pay Obamacare premiums, 6% of Americans pay Obamacare premiums. The Democrats were holding out in the shutdown, fighting for those 6% of Americans who desperately need help to pay for health insurance. They are the kind of people that the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party alone cares about and has cared about since Franklin Delano Roosevelt made concern about the people who need help from the government. The soul of the Democratic Party in 1933, and it has been ever since. That small group of people, 6% of the country, was successfully leveraged by the Democrats during the shutdown to show Trump Republican cruelty, to vividly show it in a way that anyone could understand it. Without the attention of the shutdown, 94% of the country would have no idea that those premiums were going up. The shutdown made the Republican position hugely unpopular. And my guess is it didn't just pay off in the last election. My guess is it will pay off in the next election. But that is just a guess. Like everything else in this situation, I've seen many legislative losses in Congress and the smart losers never blame themselves. They don't really admit they lost because they don't admit that it's over. They just say that they're going to keep fighting. They treat it like the third inning of a nine inning game. Which is what it is. It is exactly what it is. We're in the third inning in a nine inning game. The sixth inning is a year from now in November, and the ninth inning is the next presidential election. And you can start attacking people on your own team in the third inning if you're that kind of player. Here's a guess, and it's just a guess. Maybe with Thanksgiving flights canceled and the holiday ruined for millions more people than the 6% who pay Obamacare premiums, a large majority of the country might turn against the small group of Obamacare beneficiaries who they would then see as ruining their Thanksgiving for the majority if the shutdown had continued through the holidays. Now that's just a guess. That's just a possible scenario. That's all it is. It's just a guess. I'm not suggesting that it's not something I believe. I'm just coming up with it as an example. It's just a guess. But no Senator, no Senator could tell you that that absolutely would not happen. Maybe it would. Maybe Most of the 94% who don't pay Obamacare premiums would resent the disruption of their holidays. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they would be generous about it. Maybe they would be thankful on Thanksgiving that they personally didn't have to pay higher Obamacare premiums and want to help those other people. Maybe they would want senators to keep fighting for that 6% of the country. Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine. Everyone's guess is as good as everyone else's guess. That's in the nature of guessing. So many of the people who were crushed by those five Democrats seem to think the future is a fact, not a guess. They seem to think that when they look into the future, when they see the Thanksgiving holidays and a government shutdown, they can see facts and not just guesses. But the future is not a fact. The future is a guess. Especially in politics, sometimes the old saying your guess is as good as mine is where we end up. And you can think that one Democratic senator's guess about what would happen in the future is better than another Democratic senator's guess about what would happen in the future. But don't pretend that it was something more than a guess. Leading off our discussion tonight is Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse over at Island. He's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Senator, thank you very much. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. And thank you for being so much more understanding of people's feelings in these situations than I am in my rush to get into the reality of how these decisions are made. But let me begin with the subject that so many people are wondering about, including one of our viewers last night, and that is, what about Sheldon Whitehouse as majority leader or minority leader of the United States Senate?
- [20:36]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, first of all, I don't think there's any need for a leadership change at this point. I think it would be enormously disruptive. While we're in the middle of this fight, I think people should also understand that the Senate, as you know so well, Lawrence, is a completely different body than the House. In the House, if a group of Democrats defected and went over and voted with the Republicans, that would be really notable, particularly under the often ferocious leadership of the greatest legislator of all time, Nancy Pelosi. It's a different thing. It's Team first in the House. The Senate has never been that way. And that's why gangs of 12 and gangs of 8 and all, it always comes up. Senators have much more individual agency in the Senate than House members do in the House. So that's just a fact. You can't measure Chuck Schumer against Nancy Pelosi because he's in a different job. He also had a bigger number of senators to deal with than eight. He had the three you mentioned who had never voted to stop the continuing resolution. He had the five who voted and changed the day. But Tim Kaine has said publicly that there were another five or six that were waiting in the wings and that were encouraging them. And if one of them had not voted, you know, somebody else might have stepped in to make that eighth vote. So our, our caucus had a bigger problem than just eight. And I think the point that you led with is, is the key one here. You know, if you listen to sports radio, there are all sorts of people who say the manager should be fired, you should switch the first and third basemen. Those were terrible draft picks. You know, everybody has an opinion, everybody has a guess about what the best way to run the team is. But if you're on the team, and particularly when the game is on, you've got to get back out on the field right away and start winning. And the thing that we have to win right now is that Affordable Care Credit vote that we will have in December. And so it's really vital that whatever people's feelings are, we focus hard on how we put Republicans in the worst possible position for that Affordable Care Credit vote in December. That is only weeks away. They hate this issue. They're in deep trouble on this issue. We've been very successful in the Senate at elevating this issue to front and center in the last 40 days. They are still in that box. And if we can keep driving at home, there is still a real chance for an Affordable Care credit win. And that has to be our goal. Win that, not fight with each other.
- [23:31]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator, I have to squeeze in a commercial break here. I want to get to more subjects with you. I hope after this break. We'll be right back with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
- [23:42]
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- [24:43]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
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- [24:45]
Lawrence O'Donnell
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- [25:04]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
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- [25:12]
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- [25:44]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Shelton. The White House is back with us. And Senator, I just want to go inside the LBJ room for a minute. That's where the Democratic senators g in their luncheon discussions where they really hash these things out. And very few Senate staffers ever get into that room. I used to be in there a lot as the staff director of the Senate Finance Committee. But in that room, which no one's ever seen, there's never been a camera in there. Every senator has an opportunity to convince every other senator every time you meet of your thinking. You have a chance every time to try to change the minds of every one of them, sometimes at great length. Can you describe the degree of difficulty involved in trying to change the mind of a senator? And by the way, either model, the well intentioned senator who actually thinks he or she is doing the right thing that you disagree with, or the senator who's in the pocket of some other force, try to change the mind of that senator in there, in that room.
- [26:52]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Yeah, it's not easy. As you've probably seen, there are times when a wave of optimism or a wave of anger or a wave of revulsion washes through the caucus and you can see the tides shift. And every once in a while somebody makes an argument that's so compelling, particularly on a matter that's personal to them or to their state, on a small matter that people are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, the scope to do the thing that they've worked on for 15 years and get that finally settled, or to do the thing that's essential to their home state. But on a big issue, on a national issue, you know, Senators, we're sent there to think for ourselves, and our states kind of demand that of us. So it's not an audience that is easily swayed. And we're also, you know, we do a lot of talking. So not everybody is always the best listener.
- [27:54]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. So just for the audience, if there's a future Democratic leader in the Senate who was in that room, every one of them did not manage to change the mind of any one of those eight Democrats. Senator, I want to move on to the developments in the Ghislaine Maxwell case. We have emails now. NBC News has of Ghislaine Maxwell describing her new prison setup, which is a prison camp, as really heaven for her. She says, I feel like I have dropped through Alice in Wonderland looking glass. I am much, much happier here and more importantly, safe. So, yes, everyone can breathe a sigh. There's also reporting that the warden there is helping her with her legal case by helping her email and communicate with her lawyers, which would otherwise be impossible for any other prisoner there. All seemingly sliding toward Donald Trump's kind of open public invitation for her to ask for a pardon.
- [29:00]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, do the math. Her lawyer knows from private practice, Todd Blanche, the deputy Attorney general, they have a relationship. Todd Blanche, I think for the first time in the history of the Deputy Attorney General's office goes down to conduct a personal interview with a witness, Ghislaine Maxwell, in asking those questions, any prosecutor looks at how the questions were asked. This was a defense interview. This was not an investigative interview. This was getting just enough to create doubt to help your client and then move on to other issues. And I have no doubt that her lawyer coached Ms. Maxwell how to answer those questions. So Donald Trump got what he wanted, which was an exculpatory interview with Ghislaine Maxwell. She delivered. So they've been delivering for her since they moved her to a new prison, which they can't explain, refused to answer questions about it. They've improved her conditions of living in the new Club Fed prison. And now you mentioned that, you know, there are other favor is being given. This is the most obvious quid pro quo. It's being done in plain view. And to your opening point, if this administration were not so riddled with relentless, constant corruption and criminality, this would be front page news right across the entire country. But there's just so much that the press gets exhausted.
- [30:32]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Is it possible that the flood of pardons, including these largely meaningless pardons that he issued to all those people in Washington involved in his attempt to overturn the last the presidential election in 2020, that those pardons were for federal crimes, that none of those people have been charged with that that's all part of a big pardon fog. So that in that pardon fog, one day can be the Ghislaine Maxwell pardon?
- [31:00]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
I suppose. So it's hard to figure it out. It's not clear to me that Donald Trump even knows that when he pardons somebody, it doesn't affect their state charges. None of that crowd of crew, I should say, of people who he pardoned, had a state, a federal charge. They had state charges or they'd even pled guilty affirmatively acknowledging their guilt to state charges. So it really didn't do much. There were maybe five or six of them who were likely the unindicted co conspirators in the indictment, the federal indictment of Donald Trump. And if you're an unindicted co conspirator that leads one of two places, you're either going to see an indictment or somebody's going to see a cooperation agreement. Very frequently, those are the two outcomes. So if you're one of those, then this pardon means something. But not when you have a MAGA Department of Justice that isn't going to indict one of Donald Trump's co conspirators under any circumstances. So it was a very peculiar thing. I think it was a signal. If you're loyal to me, I'll do anything for you, even if it's just signaling. And by the way, if we have to do this again and steal an election and smash up the Capitol to try to interfere with the counting of the votes, you'll be cool with that because I've got your back and I can prove it because I pardoned everybody in the scheme, not just the people with the boots on the ground smashing things up in the Capitol, but the creepy schemers who are behind it, coming up with the cockamamie theories that earned many of them bar discipline.
- [32:40]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Shell of the Whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [32:44]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you.
- [32:46]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Coming up, Harvard economics professor Jason Furman, who served as President Obama's chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, will join us to untangle Donald Trump's newest craziest lies about tariffs. That's next.
- [33:00]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
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- [33:31]
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- [34:31]
Lawrence O'Donnell
After calling 65% of Americans, including an awful lot of Trump voters, fools for opposing his tariffs and then promising to send all of Those people a $2,000 check to compensate them for the pain they've suffered from his tariffs, which Donald Trump also claims are not actually affecting those people, the Wall Street Journal editorial board said this this is a teaching moment for a high school logic class. Start with the contradiction that Mr. Trump can both pay a tariff rebate and pay down the national debt. The annual federal budget deficit is roughly $1.8 trillion, even with tariff revenue, so paying a rebate would add to the national debt, not reduce it. Mr. Trump is essentially promising to repay Americans $2,000 of the border taxes they're paying in higher prices. But if tariffs are a free economic lunch and their benefits abound, why offer a rebate? Should shouldn't voters be thrilled about tariffs even without a rebate? CNBC said this According to the Treasury Department's September report, the U.S. collected roughly $195 billion in customs duties so far in 2025, more than doubling last year's total. If you pay $2,000 to 100 million Americans, you end up at 200 billion, said Thomas Phillipson, a professor of public policy studies at University of Chicago and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. That would be less than one third of the people living in the United States, Philipson said. If Trump includes 200 million Americans, we are up to 400 billion. They are going to pay back more than the tariff revenue. Joining us now is Jason Furman, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Obama. He is now professor of economic policy at Harvard University. And professor, what would be the first thing you would like to correct about Donald Trump's thinking here?
- [36:35]
Jason Furman
I mean, I'd like to correct the Wall Street Journal editorial. You know, this to me looks more like middle school math than high school math. To understand the problems here, every part of this doesn't make any sense. We have a large deficit. We can't afford this. It's way higher than the tariff revenue. He claimed the tariffs were being paid by other countries. Of course they're not being paid by other countries. It's just nuts.
- [37:06]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And as we go forward, there is the possibility, of course, of the Supreme Court just ruling these tariffs, the emergency so called emergency tariffs, illegal and unconstitutional, that involves a forced repayment of them. But in general, the public in general is saying in polls that they disapprove of Donald Trump's economic policies and that is something he's not accustomed to. And so what are we seeing as the White House, what is the policy reaction that you've seen, if any, to this rebuke in polling? To this White House?
- [37:47]
Jason Furman
Yeah. I mean, up until this last week, heard nothing out of the White House about affordability. And it was, it's ironic, of course, because it was the issue he was elected on, but seemed entirely indifferent to it. If you remember, earlier this year he was talking about at Christmas, people can buy fewer dolls. Why do people need to buy so many dolls? Just didn't really sound in touch with the problems that Americans have and had a set of policies that were making affordability worse, not better. This week you finally started to hear lip service to the idea. But the only two things I've heard are the $2,000 ch, which by the way, wouldn't help. We also got a bunch of inflation from it. And then the 50 year mortgage is the other idea I've heard under this heading.
- [38:35]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So when you send out a $2,000 check to everyone, you are sending out checks to some people who don't really need it at the same time that this president is refusing to help with the health insurance premiums for people on Obamacare who need help with the premiums. Not every participant in Obamacare needs help with the premiums, but the people who do really do. And those people, no help from this president.
- [39:03]
Jason Furman
Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, I would love every single American to get $2,000. That would be a wonderful thing if we could do that. But we can't, unfortunately, afford to do that. We especially can't afford to do that when we have a whole bunch of tax cuts that were passed earlier this year. But absolutely on a targeted basis, the premium tax credits which are expiring, I would love to see those continue even better. And I think this is really, really difficult to do politically, but even better would be to pay for continuing them by raising taxes, taking back some of those tax cuts for the most affluent Americans who didn't need them and got them earlier this year.
- [39:43]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Professor Jason Furman, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [39:47]
Jason Furman
Thank you.
- [39:48]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Coming up, one of Donald Trump's newest lies about tariffs is to say that the Treasury Department cannot possibly repay those tariffs if the Supreme Court rules that they are illegal and unconstitutional. Customs expert Laurie Mullins joins us next. Donald Trump's new lie about his illegal and unconstitutional tariffs is that it would be impossible to pay back the Americans who paid those tariffs. That is a lie. The United States treasury knows exactly who paid the tariffs. They keep as close track of that as they do income taxes. The treasury knows exactly how much each of us has paid in income taxes and is capable of immediately refunding any amount that is greater than what we owe. The total amount of tariff revenue collected by the treasury this year is $195 billion. That is less than than the amount that the IRS refunds to income taxpayers in a typical year. The treasury knows how to do this. In fact, Donald Trump's Justice Department lawyers, in appealing the Trump tariff case to the United States Supreme Court, assured the appeals court and the Supreme Court in writing that they could easily pay back the tariffs if they lose the case. Our next guest, customs expert Lori Mullins, explained the situation to cnbc. If the tariffs are ruled illegal, Mullins said issuing a refund should be as Easy as when U.S. customs automatically refunded U.S. importers Generalized System of Preference duties on U.S. eligible imports between January 1, 2018, and April 21, 2018. With GSP, imports were filed a specific way and it was a simple process with customs sending the money back to the importers, Mullins said She added that because International Emergency Economic Powers act tariffs are filed with itemization, the refund process would be similar and in theory, faster. In her opinion, the real complexity lies in how customs brokers, who are already dealing with shortages in experienced personnel, will manage the expected increase in filings. Joining us now is Laurie Mullins, director of operations at Rogers and Brown Custom Brokers and president of the Houston Custom Brokers Association. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. I've been dying to have this conversation. How easy is it to track who would be owed a refund of these tariffs?
- [42:15]
Laurie Mullins
So every entry that's filed is very clearly itemized by line item, the types of tariffs that are being paid. So each IPA type of tariff for, let's say the Russian oil or the reciprocal tariff is line itemed into the entry. So each of those are pretty simple for the government to track.
- [42:37]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We actually have that, that you gave us a receipt for that, for that $98,000 in tariffs on that oil, specifying exactly how it's laid out, specifying who paid it. That's the kind of documentation that the treasury has on this. Is it as simple as income tax refunds that all of us have received at some point?
- [43:01]
Laurie Mullins
It could be. So, you know, like I had mentioned before to cnbc, the refunds in the past for GSP were very specific and how they were filed. If this case ends up that, that all of them have to be refunded, it could be as simple as that. I think it likely will become more complex in that a clawback would be required so that importers would be required to claw back the funds. In that case, it could be a.
- [43:36]
Lawrence O'Donnell
More complex meaning the, the importer would be required to make a claim for it. We wouldn't just automatically send the money back.
- [43:45]
Laurie Mullins
Correct. A claim would go in from the customs broker on behalf of the importer or the importer themselves just asking for those funds. It's a lot more complex in that the, the filing has to be done, there's a time limitation and then obviously the personnel issues that occur, the customs brokers currently are already overwhelmed, so that would just add to the complexity.
- [44:11]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And the customs brokers are overwhelmed because of the tariff regime?
- [44:15]
Laurie Mullins
Yeah, basically each tariff as they've gone in, pulled back, gone higher, gone lower. The customs brokers are having to navigate all of that on behalf of the importers. So those complexities continue even though IIPA is in question. There are currently tariffs such as the 232, steel and aluminum, copper, now timber. We have more of these coming for possibly critical minerals and other additional tariffs that are still going to be used. So it's very likely, as we've been hearing, that the president could use other processes to continue to collect those tariffs. But right now we're still navigating tons of other additional types of tariff that are not not IEEPA related.
- [45:03]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Laurie Mullins, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I've been eager to have this kind of expertise shared on this subject. Thank you very much.
- [45:12]
Laurie Mullins
Thank you.
- [45:13]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We'll be right back. Tariff expert Lori Mullins gets tonight's last word at Designer Shoe Warehouse. We believe that shoes are an important.
- [45:24]
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